The Cable Gang specialises in cable pulling for hospitals, having completed successful projects for many NHS Trusts across the UK. These projects present individual cable installation challenges, often supplying power to some of the most costly and complex equipment used in modern medicine such as clinical imaging MRI scanners.

Challenging and exacting cable installation

Working for a major teaching hospital in London, the Cable Gang was commissioned to carry out the cable installation to provide upgraded power supplies for a new scanner being installed on one of the upper floors of the hospital building. This was a particularly challenging cable pull, involving both existing and new containment.

The Cable Gang team installed new sub mains, taking low voltage steel wire armoured (SWA cables) and CPC cables from the car park into the basement. The cables were pulled around the basement on existing older containment then up a riser to the upper floors. On the level housing the new scanner, the cables were pulled around the floor on new containment to the plant room serving the scanner.

Matching operational requirements

Managing this cable installation in an operational hospital called for the Cable Gang to work around existing 24 hour processes and other special requirements. These included respecting the mortuary as the entry point into the building for the new cabling in the basement, presenting specific challenges for the team.

Additional demands included deploying specialist in-house personnel trained to work in confined spaces necessitating breathing apparatus. The project was completed on budget to meet tight deadlines enabling the scanner to be put to use on time and on schedule.